


The Look

by quicksilverdeancas (quicksilvermalec)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Dean Winchester Loves Sam Winchester SO FUCKING MUCH, Dean Winchester is Sam Winchester's Parent, Elementary School Student Sam Winchester, Gen, POV Outsider, Pre-Canon, Pre-Stanford Era (Supernatural), Sam Winchester Goes to School, Sam Winchester Has PTSD, Sam Winchester Loves Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester is A Gift to this World, THIS IS NOT WINCEST, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester, anyway enjoyoufoyoy, everyone loves sam, like 8yo bitty baby Sammy, like before he was bigger than Dean, seriously like YOUNG Sammy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21556687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilvermalec/pseuds/quicksilverdeancas
Summary: "You’re staying the whole day, right? You won’t be leaving early?”“No, ma’am,” he tells her, shaking his head, and she pats him on the shoulder.“Good, because I have something to give you.”Three hours later, a big black car – a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, if she’s correct, with a Kansas license plate that reads SAM 583 – pulls into the school’s parking lot. A tall guy with a big beard stomps into her classroom, stops her class completely, and drags Sam Winchester out of the school. He gives her a regretful look as he goes.
Relationships: Katie Laung (OFC) & Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester & Dean Winchester...? maybe?
Comments: 14
Kudos: 138





	The Look

**Author's Note:**

> This was born from the idea of elementary!Sammy which snowballed into elementary!Sammy having The PTSD Look™, which then snowballed into... whatever the fuck this is.
> 
> Enjoy?

There’s a look specific to people with tragic pasts, with horrible backstories, people who’ve seen far too much of the world to be quite the way that they were supposed to be. Katie Laung knows because she’s seen that look on a million faces, she wears that look herself every day of her life. It’s almost like a shift in energy around those people, but it’s so hard to notice unless you know where to look.

She’s trained herself to see it, working with victims of rape, abuse, and war on her days off. She knows what post-traumatic stress looks like, and she’s seen countless examples.

So when Sam Winchester walks into her second-grade classroom a few weeks into the start of the school year, wearing secondhand clothes and a broken backpack and _that look_ , it throws her for a loop. This boy is 9 years old and he’s got the PTSD look, and she knows that’s sad but more than that, it’s disturbing.

She asks him if he’s okay, away from the rest of the class, only about an hour after they start school. He just shakes his head, he doesn’t say anything. He hasn’t said anything all day. But he starts to get a little tearful, and she doesn’t know why but she crouches down to get on his level and she folds him into her arms. “I’m sorry, Sam,” she tells him. “If you need anything, I’m right here. You can contact me any time.”

He nods and goes back into the classroom, and she watches him regretfully. She doesn’t think she’s really gotten through to him.

Sam doesn’t say anything in class for the first three days. But then on day 4 he raises his hand for clarification on a math problem. She smiles almost unbearably wide. His voice is kind of timid but confident, and she’s not quite sure how it can be both at once. He’s still innocent and naïve and a little boy, but she can tell he’s been forced to be older than he is as long as he’s been alive.

At recess, she asks him if he wants to talk. He shrugs, so she tries a different tactic. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Older brother,” Sam replies. “Dean.”

“How much older?”

“Four years, ma’am.”

She laughs. “You don’t need to call me ma’am, I work for a living.”

Sam blushes. “Sorry, ma’am. My dad taught me…” he trails off.

“Taught you what, honey?”

“Respect m’ elders,” he mumbles, and his words are a little blurred together, like he’s not being entirely truthful. She knows that tone and adjusts the volume of her voice accordingly.

“How did he teach you?” she asks quietly. Sam doesn’t answer, which is enough answer for her.

On the ninth school day after he appears, she asks him where his dad is. He shrugs. “You don’t know?” He shrugs again. “Did he just leave you here?”

“I haven’t seen my dad in two weeks,” he tells her. She goggles at him.

“How do you get here?”

“Walk from the motel.”

“You’re staying in a motel?”

“We always do.”

She takes a deep breath. “What do you mean by always?”

Sam Winchester looks up with her with eyes that speak of sadness and wisdom and resignation far beyond his years. “Ms. Laung,” he says, “my family is fucked up.”

She raises her eyebrows at both his bluntness and his vulgarity, and he offers no further clarification.

A few days later, he finally tells her about Dean. “My older brother is just about the only person who matters. He’s the one who takes care of me. He makes sure I eat and sleep. He thinks I don’t know, but sometimes he’ll go five, six days without eating anything because his job is to take care of me first and we don’t always have enough. I love him more than I love anything else on the planet.”

“I can imagine,” she replies, staring at him in awe. _How does he get up every day?_ “So… no mom?”

He looks away from her at that. “Died when I was six months old. Dad went a little crazy after that. He’s hardly ever around, it’s just me and Dean most of the time.”

“That must be hard.”

“Long as Dean is around, no. He’s mom and dad and big brother and best friend all in one and he’s all I got, but he’s all I need, too. I think it’s a’ight.”

She smiles. “Well, I’m glad you don’t feel too bad about it. And I’m glad you’re taken care of. But please, Sam, remember, if there’s ever anything you need, let me know.”

He nods. “Thank you, Ms. Laung.”

Twelve school days after Sam first appeared in her classroom, he walks in in the morning with a bruise on his arm and a poorly bandaged cut on his forehead. She pulls him aside before she starts class, but she doesn’t even get to say anything because he cuts her off.

“My dad came back last night. He’s sleeping off the hangover now but he’ll be up by the time I get home and once I do we’re gonna hit the road. I probably won’t see you again. I’m sorry. I liked you.”

She stares at him. “You’re leaving?”

“I’ve lived in a lot of towns. Generally don’t stay in one place longer than two weeks. This is pretty much par for the course.” He doesn’t sound bitter or frustrated or confused or any of the things she’d expect him to. He just sounds… resigned. It hits her very hard then, that this child has far too difficult of a life for a second grader.

“I… I’m sorry,” she tells him. He just shrugs.

“It’s my life. I don’t know what to tell you.” He glances back into the room, where his classmates (none of whom he’s taken any time to try and befriend and, honestly, she can see why now) are throwing pencils and spitballs and paper airplanes at each other because _they can_ thanks to lack of adult supervision. “Well, you should probably start class now. Y’know, before they destroy the whole building.”

She laughs in surprise. “Alright,” she replies. “But you’re staying the whole day, right? You won’t be leaving early?”

“No, ma’am,” he tells her, shaking his head, and she pats him on the shoulder.

“Good, because I have something to give you.”

Three hours later, a big black car – a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, if she’s correct, with a Kansas license plate that reads SAM 583 – pulls into the school’s parking lot. A tall guy with a big beard stomps into her classroom, stops her class completely, and drags Sam Winchester out of the school. He gives her a regretful look as he goes.

Thirty-one years later, on her last day of her last year teaching before her retirement, a man walks into her classroom. He’s tall, probably 6’5”, and his hair is a little too long, and he has multicolored eyes, and he looks like someone unused to smiling. But he smiles just a little bit when he sees her.

“Are you Katie Laung?” he asks her, and she nods. “I’m Sam Winchester. I don’t know if you remember me, but-”

“I have something to give you,” she finishes for him, and it’s his turn to nod.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d have kept it all these years or not, but even if you hadn’t… you were one of the only people in my childhood who showed me any kindness, so since I was around I wanted to stop by and thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Sam,” she replies warmly. Then she turns to dig through her drawers. “It’s here somewhere. I did keep it, you know. To be honest, I thought that father of yours was gonna kill ya, but I’m glad he didn’t.”

Sam laughs. “Nah, I’m too tough.” He glances around, then leans forward conspiratorially. “Okay, so that’s not true. The _real_ reason my dad didn’t kill me is because of my brother Dean.”

“Ah, yes, of course. The one who feeds and clothes you and keeps you from getting yourself killed. The boy you love more than anything else in the world.”

“How do you remember all of this?” he asks her, sounding awed.

“Wrote it all down,” she tells him, winking. “You were a fascinating little boy, you know, and I thought if you ever did anything interesting I’d want to know about it. And I’d want to know about your adulthood, as well, if you made it that far, which… well, considering the thirty seconds I saw your father, your comment about hangovers, and the evidence of physical abuse that last day, didn’t seem particularly likely. But you made it, and I’m proud of you, boy.”

She keeps rifling through drawers, filing cabinets, desks, compartments. Folders go flying everywhere and files are strewn about and then suddenly she catches sight of it. She bends down and picks it up, then hands it to him.

“This is a luck charm,” she tells him as he examines the little carved wooden cube in his hand. “Wards off evil things and brings you protection. Each face has a different deity carved into it, except the faces that would be one and six.” He rolls it between his fingers until he finds those two.

On the one face is a miniature version of the letters S.W., a near-perfect replica of the ones scored into the Impala. On the six face is the letters D.W., just the same.

“How did you know?” he asks quietly. She smiles her sweet smile at him.

“Winchester is somewhat of a famous name in the hunting community,” she reminds him. “I’ve learned a thing or two.”

“Did you know who we were?” he demands.

“No,” she answers truthfully. “But I knew who you _would_ be.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm tired but I can't sleep because all my rp partners except one live in like, Britain. Fuck my LIFE.
> 
> Love,  
> -Fake Dean | Sil


End file.
